


Smoke Cloud Blues-A Prologue In Three Parts

by MissAvaline



Series: Smoke Cloud Series [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Drug Use, Emperor Hux, Kylux - Freeform, Like really slow, Love/Hate, M/M, Matt is a Kylo Clone, MattuxRen, Millicent - Freeform, Mixed POV, Or Is he?, Slow Burn, Space Husbands, Told in Retrospect, general hux is philosophical, space cat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-17
Packaged: 2018-05-18 13:56:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5930854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAvaline/pseuds/MissAvaline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Three Part Prologue to The Smoke Cloud Series </p><p>“What the hell was that?” Hux sneered, pressing himself up against the technician. Beneath the hideous bulky, technician’s vest the man’s body was warm, and Hux could feel the other man’s heart-beating against his own chest. The other man’s breath brushed against his face, and Hux felt a stirring in his stomach as he realized that in all the years of Ren and him being at each other’s throats, he had never been as close to Kylo Ren, as he was with this man who wore Ren's face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Code Ren

General Hux sat alone in a quiet corner staring out the window while all of space was splayed out before him. There was hardly a speck on the glass of the meticulously cleaned window. Clear and flawless just the way things ought to be, it gave the illusion that he was floating out there in deep space and not trapped in a suffocating vessel.

  
Hux flicked ashes off the tip of his cigarette, the fifth one he’d had in a row. Then he brought that cigarette to his lips, inhaled deep and allowed the smoke to fill his lungs. He held it in for a moment, leaned his head back, closed his eyes and felt the smoke settle far into his chest, before breathing it out. If there was a single source of happiness in his life it was that—smoke and tar in his lungs. Nothing soothed him quite like a good smoke alone in a quiet corner.

But alas, General Hux being who he was, those moments were short, and before long came the inevitable.

His comlink blinked, disturbing his peace, followed by the sound of Captain Phasma’s voice.

“General, sir,” said the Captain. “Code Red, on the bridge.”

Code Red.

If Hux had any sort of humor he might have purposed renaming Code Red to Code Ren ages ago, it would have been more apt a name.

“Is this a situation you can contain without me, Captain?” Hux spoke into his comlink. He knew the answer before he asked the question but still he felt he owed it to himself to ask.

“No.”

Hux drew one last smoke from his half finished cigarette, savoring it, before letting it out; an exhale of smoke mixed with a deep sigh.

Then he leaned forward, marveled at the clear, clean glass a final time, before he pressed the butt of the cigarette against the window, marring the perfection of that crystal clear glass. He twisted the cigarette causing the flakes of ashes to break off and crumble to the ground, squashing out the smoke, then, as the final act of vandalism, he dragged the thing across the glass, painting an ugly, grimy black line across the once beautiful, untainted view of deep space. It almost hurt him to do it, which was precisely why he did it.

Hux dropped that cigarette on the ground, amongst a small pile of flatten cigarette butts he had accumulated during his too-short break, leaving it for the cleaning droids. Then he drew himself up, straightened his uniform and headed towards the bridge.

Code Ren. No two words in the galaxy summed up his life quite so succinctly than those.

General Hux had dreams once, dreams that didn’t involve Kylo Ren. Dreams of a glorious life of power, of ruling a great empire, dreams that blew away in a cloud of cigarette smoke and the sound of “Code Ren” in his ears.

***

The first time General Hux saw the Ren look-a-like staggering into the mess hall, his orange hair like a cake frosted by an amateur pastry chef on top of his narrow head, Hux felt the twitch of his fingers as his insides quarreled between the desire to reach for a cigarette and the deep urge to punch the technician square in the face. The technician looked like a stray dog, posture tense and frightful, while his big eyes darted aimlessly around the room behind ill-fitting glasses, like he couldn’t quite make sense of his surroundings.

Then there was the way the technician spoke: stumbling over his words as he introduced himself as though he barely knew who he was, let along his own name. “Hi…I’m Matt…a radar technician…”

It was more than Hux could bare.

Kylo Ren, in spite of his propensity for tantrums and melodrama, had, if nothing else, confidence and self-assurance and unwavering authority. Even those who had reason to dislike Ren (and what good reasons they were), respected him, not out of fear, (though Hux, couldn’t deny the man had a gift for eliciting fear as well) but because Ren had an ability to command respect in a way that was innate and undeniable. And here was this imposter who had Ren’s face, while lacking everything else that made Kylo Ren who he was.

 _I suppose that’s the point,_ Hux thought to himself, and yet, for reasons he didn’t care to explore too closely, the idea of this technician, who looked like Ren, but was not Ren, offended Hux to the core.

Hux needed a cigarette. He turned to the Lieutenant Colonel by his side and said to the man, “Keep an eye on the new technician.”

To which the lieutenant looked up at him with that perpetually gormless expression Hux had little patience for and said, “Me, sir?”

“Yes. You, Lieutenant Colonel,” Hux snapped. Irritation rose inside of him.

“But he’s just a technician, sir…why would I—” The man took in the warning glare in the general’s eyes and recoiled. “Yes, sir.” Then he straightened his back and saluted.

 _Much better,_ thought Hux. He turned on his heel and walked out of the mess hall, but not before taking one last glance at the Ren look-a-like. The general looked deep into those dark eyes, they were Kylo Ren’s eyes, but they were not Kylo Ren’s eyes.

 _This creature’s a travesty_ , thought Hux, as he moved past the radar technician who called himself Matt. Just as those thoughts entered his mind, Hux saw a small twitch in the muscles beneath Matt’s eyes, as though he had heard Hux’s thoughts.

***

General Hux was wrong, he found. The technician proved he shared more with Kylo Ren than just a face. Of all of Ren’s idiosyncrasies, it would seem that it was his temper and impertinence that the look-a-like inherited. The fact that the technician would embody the very trait of Ren’s that was the greatest of nuisances to Hux was, ironically, so very Ren.

By noon, the technician had scorched the walls of the mess hall by hurling Ren’s lightsaber through the air--what was Ren thinking allowing him to even have access to the weapon?-- nearly slicing off the nose of a stormtrooper and had electrocuted another in a seething rage, in two separate events.

Hux had only heard tales of the first incident, while he had witnessed the second, and already that was one too many incidences he needed to witness before he was on the verge of losing his mind.

Following the second event, Hux followed the technician out of the mess hall. 

The corridor was empty outside the mess hall. Mid day meal had not yet ended which allowed a small window of privacy for Hux and the technician. Hux caught up to the technician, cornered him like a predator on the prowl, before grabbing the technician’s arm and shoved him up against the wall.

The technician stared at Hux, with Ren’s eyes, in shock and apprehension that was so unlike Ren. He had his mouth opened agape, and with that opened mouth and those wide, nervous eyes magnified behind thick lenses, Hux was reminded of a dog once more, this time one that had been caught wetting the carpet.

“What the hell was that?” Hux sneered, pressing himself up against the technician. Beneath the hideous bulky, technician’s vest the man’s body was warm, and Hux felt the technician's heart beating against his own chest. The other man’s breath brushed against his face, and Hux felt a stirring in his stomach as he realized that in all the years of Ren and him being at each other’s throats, he had never been as close to Kylo Ren, as he was with this man who wore Ren's face.

The technician’s mouth opened and closed, as though searching for words, and when he finally found them, they fumbled out of his mouth like an infant learning to speak. “He insulted Kylo.” That was all he said, as though that ought to be enough.

In a way it was for Hux, he understood even though it filled him with a great desire to wring the man’s neck.

“For fucks sake,” said Hux. This technician was a poor man’s Kylo Ren and Kylo Ren was a poor man’s Vader, and the pair of them were like love sick school girls with their respective obsessions. All of it was too much for Hux.

Hux felt his body aching for another smoke, but he wasn’t finished with the technician yet. He wasn’t about to let the man off so easily. Under his rule…no, not rule…command…under General Hux’s command there will be order on his ship, and nothing breaks down order faster than poor morale. The general will be damned before he allows the uninhibited temper of over grown children to destroy the morale on his ship.

He tightened his grip on the technician, enjoying the way the man’s face screwed into a wince, a satisfaction Ren would never have given him.

“I don’t care if he fashioned a doll in Ren’s likeness and shoved it up your ass, you will mind your temper on my ship, do you understand me?”

The technician writhed beneath Hux’s grip, but his eyes were hard and defiant. “Let me go.”

The man wrinkled his nose and bore his teeth, reminiscent of a dog yet again and Hux felt an invisible tug around his throat. It was light, a minor squeeze that pressed briefly against the general’s Adam’s apple before Hux shook it off, a feat he never would have managed with Ren, but he did so easily with this man.

Hux’s eyes bore into the technician’s, as a maniacal amusement rose inside of him. “What was that?” His voice was sharp, dripping with hilarity, that made the words sound almost like a bark, mocking the technician for his poor attempt at assault.

To his credit, the other man had the grace to look embarrassed.

Hux narrowed his eyes and leaned into the technician’s ears and said in a low voice, “Be very careful boy, you may have Ren’s face, but you are not Ren.”

Something flittered across the technician’s face, something sad, melancholic and full of yearning, a look that might have stirred a drop of sympathy in someone else who was not Hux. But the look vanished quickly, giving way to a quiet submission.

That was enough for Hux. Whatever else people might say of Hux, and his lust for power and control, he didn’t much enjoy beating down a dead horse, especially when the dead horse was looking up at him with those big, pitiful eyes.

Hux pushed off of him as he pulled away from the man who had Ren’s face, but was not Ren. Feeling the coldness spread over him as he moved away from the warmth of the other man’s body, Hux felt a yearning of his own. But he pushed that feeling away, it was a useless sentiment Hux could do without, and he straightened himself up.

Without another look at the technician, Hux stalked away, to the quiet corner where he could be alone, without Ren or anyone who looked like Ren, just him and a pack of cigarettes and all of space splayed out in front of him.


	2. Reaching for Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt is lonely. He thinks of better times.

Matt often thought about dying his hair black because it was the color of Kylo Ren’s. The day he finally did it, it was with a pack of ink he had stolen from the supply room on his first day as a radar technician. As he stood in front of the mirror in Kylo Ren’s chambers, coating the mess of coarse orange curls on his head with the ink, he fought back the sound of General Hux’s voice in his head, echoing like noise in a hollow cave, “You may have Ren’s face, but you are not Ren.”

Even in his head the general’s voice was laced with the same subtle mockery Matt had heard in it that day in the corridor outside of the mess hall. Though hours had passed since, the sting of those words had not dulled, and as Matt recalled them, he was filled with a deep rage and an even deeper compulsion to slam his fist into the glass, because it was what Kylo Ren would have done. Or maybe it was just something that he would have done. Matt wasn’t sure. Sometimes it was hard for him to tell where Matt ended, and Kylo Ren began.

When the hair was dried, coated black like Kylo’s, thick curls, pulled straight like Kylo’s, Matt stepped back and examined his reflection. Without the glasses on his face, he squinted through his blurred vision at the man in the mirror. What he saw behind the looking glass startled him and for a moment. When he thought that it was Kylo Ren staring back at him, Matt felt a giddy, child-like delight in his chest, at the idea that he had finally achieve his one singular desire. But then he blinked, to clear his eyes of the fog that was gathering on his vision from squinting too long and when he looked again he saw the reflection for what it was—his own, masquerading as Kylo Ren. A poor imitation of the real thing. Though his hair was black like Kylo’s, and straightened like Kylo’s, it sat too short and flat around his head, in a way that Matt had never seen Kylo’s hair look. But the discrepancy didn’t end with just the hair, it was in his face as well. Though Matt’s face ought to be a carbon copy of Kylo’s there were things his face had always lacked— the hard edge in the lines of the unusual features and the solemn gaze that never left Kylo’s eyes.

The general was right. Matt may have Kylo Ren’s face, but he was not Kylo Ren, and Matt didn’t know what that meant. Perhaps he was too young to know.

***  
When Matt looked back on the early years of his existence those few short years flew by in perfect golden hued memories. For a short time after his birth—if one can call it such— Kylo Ren had been his and his alone.

Those were the years before the resistance grew in strength, before the tide of the war was turned by the awakening in the Force, before the threat of Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi’s return began to rise from whispers in the shadows.

They spent their days together, Kylo Ren and him, lying in green fields, underneath blue skies. That place they were on was called a planet, one of a billion out there in the galaxy, Matt was told, and the thing covering over their heads, was space.

Matt used to lay with his head on Kylo’s chest, staring up at the sky, with his hands stretched out, trying to touch it. He longed to be out there in space, and he wondered what it was like to float amongst the stars. He never imagined it would be so cold.

They spent their nights curled up together, under the duvet in the chamber of the palace that their side—it was his side too, Kylo had told him—had won in a siege.

Matt would curl his fingers in the soft locks of Kylo’s hair as they were pressed up against each other, their breaths drawing in tandem. He didn’t know much about the world, or the great, big galaxy out there, all he knew was that in his corner of the galaxy, there was Kylo Ren, and that was enough.

“Why am I not exactly like you?” Matt asked one night as he rested against Kylo, with the blankets pulled over their heads to block out the cold. The weather was changing and the warmer nights were growing rarer.

Matt thought about the color of his hair, orange and rusty, and in tuffs of unruly curls that never seems to grow any longer than the bush atop his head. And he thought about his faulty eyesight that forced him to wear the ridiculous spectacles over his face to correct his vision.

“A design flaw,” said Kylo simply.

A flaw. It seemed cruel to say, but it was the truth, Matt knew and he accepted it for what it was.

“Are there other’s like me?” Matt asked.

“Other clones?” said Kylo. Matt closed his eyes and listened to the way Kylo’s chest rumbled when he spoke. “Yes.”

“Do they look like me?”

“Like _me_ , you mean,” said Kylo. “No, of course not. They aren’t my clones.”

“Who’s clones are they?”

If his questions were dull, and childish, Kylo showed no signs of impatience as he answered, “Other people’s. There’ve been armies made of clones, you know? Powerful armies.”

Matt straightened up beneath the covers. “Clones could be powerful?” Power. That meant something to Matt, because it meant something to Kylo.

“Very,” said Kylo. “And dangerous too.”

Matt ran his fingers across the length of Kylo’s bare torso, feeling the muscles underneath his white skin. The word “shredded” came to mind, an adjective he must have picked up from an overheard conversation. It was a silly, unsophisticated colloquialism he had never heard from Kylo Ren’s lips before, but it came to mind then because in that silly, unsophisticated way, it fit. Words are funny, Matt had come to find.

“Is that what you want me to be?” Matt asked. “Powerful and dangerous?”

“Is that what you want to be?” said Kylo.

Yes, Matt thought, he wanted to be powerful and dangerous, because it was what Kylo Ren was. “I just want to be like you.”

Kylo’s voice was distant and edged with a coldness Matt had never heard directed at him before. “No, you don’t,” he said and he turned his face away from Matt, closing himself off, leaving Matt to wonder what it was he said wrong.

That was the first time Matt felt Kylo Ren drifting away from him.

***  
Then they were in space, and Matt was floating amongst the stars. The Star Destroyer _Finalizer_ was a grand vessel of stealth and might, but it was cold and dark.

There was no sunlight in space. Matt learned that quickly. Up in space it was always night, with nothing but pale fluorescent lighting illuminating the stark corridors.

Matt spends his days hidden away in Kylo Ren’s chambers, like a dark secret no one was to learn of. He had been given a datapad filled with books. Hundreds of manuscripts collected from across the galaxy at his fingertips. With every passing day Matt’s knowledge grew, his mind expanded and he knew more than he had ever known before. But he had lost something precious as well. Kylo Ren.

While Matt was locked away inside the confines of the chamber, Kylo was out there, amongst the others aboard the ship, a part of something bigger that had no place for Matt.

What little Matt saw of Kylo Ren, he saw from behind a mask. With his face covered and his voice crackling and distorted, he was less Kylo than Matt was.

And he’d been in a foul mood since they’d arrived on the _Finalizer_ , storming into his chamber in the late hours of the night, seething in electrifying rage. He rarely acknowledged Matt in those moments of fury, and the rare times that he did, it was with quick glances through the slit in the mask. Matt couldn’t see his eyes, but he could feel the heat radiating from Kylo’s body, before Kylo turned and stormed into his mediation chamber, locking himself away from Matt.

In times like that Kylo was as unreachable to Matt as the stars had once been.

***  
How long Matt had spent on the _Finalizer_ , he didn’t know. Time seemed non-existent aboard the floating vessel, swallowed up by the space that surrounded them.

But he’d grown weary of the confines of the chamber, weary of the books even, longing for something more: companionship and conversation.

Perhaps his isolation had driven him mad, or perhaps, despite all that he had read, he did not truly understand the concept of good judgment. Whatever it was, it caused him to think little as wandered out of the chamber, against what ought to have been his better judgment, and through the corridors of the Star Destroyer _Finalizer_.

It must have been late at night, the corridors were empty, save for the occasional stormtrooper on patrol. Matt was careful to the avoid them, ducking when he heard them coming.

Despite his time aboard the ship, everything outside his chamber was still unfamiliar to Matt, but something was pulling at him, tugging at his chest like a string attached to a marionette.

It was Kylo Ren.

Kylo led him through the maze-like corridors, until he reached the observational portal and found Klyo, sitting crossed legged in meditation before a clear view of the magnificent space.

“Come,” said Kylo’s voice, cutting into the silence through the mask. “Sit with me.”

Matt crept up along side the dark, imposing figure in the mask, apprehensively. He did not sit. He didn’t know why, but he did not dare to sit before the masked creature.

He saw Kylo turn his masked head upwards towards him, and he imagined Kylo’s eyes staring at him through the slits. Then Kylo reached a gloved hand towards Matt, beckoning for him.

“It’s okay,” said Kylo. “It's me in here.”

The uncertainty did not waver, but Matt had missed the closeness of Kylo’s presence. So he sat, crossed legs like Kylo on the observation portal. They stared out at the stars together as they used to do. With space and all it’s vastness and mysteries spread before his eyes, Matt almost remembered why he used to reach out for it.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” said Kylo, his voice a low hum behind the mask, and Matt couldn’t gage whether Kylo was angry with him.

“Why not?” said Matt. “Why can’t I be out here with you?”

“Because,” said Kylo, leaning into him. “You’re my secret.” He slid a gloved finger down the side of Matt’s face, trailing it under his chin. Behind the mask, in that crackling voice, the words sounded almost like a threat, but the touch was gentle and filled with the intimacy Matt had missed.

Heat and adrenaline coiled in Matt veins, like fiery tongue licking just underneath his skin and he wanted to sink into Kylo’s touch.

“You need to stay hidden away. It’s dangerous if anyone knew about you. Especially, General Hux.”

General Hux. Matt knew the name, from the brief glimpses he had into Kylo’s mind. He knew the general was always there, lingering in the back of Kylo thoughts, crawling under his skin. When Matt finally saw the man himself, chiseled jaw-lined and green eyes that shown like gem-stones described in one of his books, Matt thought he understood, if only just a little.

“But I miss you,” said Matt. He sounded petulant, a trait he might not have recognized in himself before all those books.

“Why?” said Kylo. He ran his gloved finger over Matt’s lips causing Matt’s breath to hitch in his throat. “I’m still here. I’m right here.” And Matt believed him, but only because he wanted to.  
***  
Kylo was back. Matt felt his presence in the chamber when he stepped away from the mirror. His freshly colored black hair still hung limp around his face, but at least it was cleaned and dried.

The door to the meditation room was opened and Matt found Kylo inside, draped languidly across the floor before the melted mask of Kylo Ren’s idol. His own mask was discarded at the side, and when Kylo turned his face to look at Matt standing outside the door, it was, Matt realized, the first time he’d seen his face in a long time.

The muscles in Matt’s abdomen clenched with want, but he didn’t dare act on it, choosing instead to stand back behind the door and simply observe.

But the tips of Kylo’s lips curled into a smile, and he lifted himself off the floor, sat up and reached out a hand to Matt, just as he had done on the observational portal all those nights ago. “I want to show you something,” said Kylo, and his voice, un-tampered by the mask, was rich and brassy. It was tantalizing in Matt’s ears, awakening a sensation from deep within him. And there came a wash of nostalgia, like listening to a favorite song he had not heard in a long time.

Matt walked into the meditation room, placed his hand in Kylo’s.

“Sit here,” said Kylo, pulling him in. “No, here.” Kylo coiled his arm around Matt’s waist and seated him in his lap. He paused for a moment, taking in the sight of Matt’s freshly colored hair.

Gingerly, Kylo picked up a lock between his fingers, as Matt held his breath, uncertain of how Kylo would react. Then, after several moments, Kylo dropped the lock of chemically darkened hair and said, idly, “Suits you.”

Matt breathed again, and watched as Kylo lifted something off the floor beside him. A glass tray, with white powder arranged in peculiar straight lines and a small silver pipe, barely the length of a thumb.

“Do you know what this is?” said Kylo, holding the glass to Matt.

Matt did. The substance was a strange kind of narcotics, made for intoxication, Matt had read of them in one of his books. What this particular substance did to the mind, though, Matt did not know for certain.

“Hold out your hand,” said Kylo, his voice was drawn out, low and breathy.

Matt held out his hand, and Kylo balanced the tray on top of it. It was heavier than Matt expected, and his hands trembled beneath the weight and tipped forward, and for a moment, Matt expected the tray to topple to the ground and shatter into pieces of broken glass through a puff of powery smoke. But an invisible hand came around the tray, filling the air with a static and metallic energy that pulled the tray up right.

Kylo acknowledged Matt’s fumble with a mere lift of the eyebrows and a slight twitch of amusement on his lips. And then, he pulled his arm away from where it had been coiled around Matt’s body, took the silver pipe in his hand, brought it up to one of his nostrils, and with a finger pressed to his other nostril, he dragged the pipe through the line of power and inhaled.

Kylo leaned back, eyelids fluttering, his thick lashes drew long shadows across his lifted cheekbones and he breathed out. His breath, brushed against Matt’s face and tickled the bridge of his nose.

“Try it,” Kylo drawled, his voice lazy.

Matt took the silver pipe, and did as he had seen Kylo do. The substance rushed into Matt’s nose, stinging his nasal passage, and swept into his mind. Matt had never felt anything like that before, warm and cool all at once. He felt as though he was floating outside of his body while a soft blanket of euphoria engulfed him. But there was something else too, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. This was no ordinary drug, Matt knew. There was an energy swirling around inside of him, static and metallic and powerful.

Matt cast a wayward glance to the melted helmet of Kylo Ren’s idol, and the pile of ashes that rested alongside the mask.

Matt could swear the pile had once been a larger mound. Perhaps it was nothing more than the effects of the passing of time that had disturbed the mound of the ashen remains…but, still, Matt couldn’t help but wonder…

“Matt,” said Kylo and the sound of the name on Kylo’s lips turned Matt’s attention. He looked to Kylo who was sprawled on the floor once more, staring up at him through half hooded lids. “You told them your name was Matt.”

“Yes.”

“How did you come to chose that name for yourself?”

“From a book,” said Matt, though he couldn’t remember which one.

“Hum…” Kylo’s long fingers drew circles around Matt’s thigh and Matt felt a stirring in his groin as heat rose to his face. “My lightsaber seemed to have gone missing, you wouldn’t happen to know where it went would you?”

The inquiry jolted Matt’s focus away from the stirring between his legs and he suddenly remembered the lightsaber still tucked in the many pockets of his uniform pants. He’d gotten so used to the weight in his back pocket, he’d forgotten it was there entirely. He’d meant to return it before Kylo realized it was gone—if there was even a time when Kylo hadn’t realized it was gone, that is.

Matt reached for the saber, pulling it out from behind him, and handed it back to Kylo. Kylo wrapped his hand around the saber’s hilt and when he did, he pulled Matt forward, to lie down beside him.

Matt leaned in, nestled his head in Kylo’s chest with his ears pressed to Kylo’s heart, listening to the sound of the heartbeat. There was something in the familiarity of it all that made Matt feel sad, though he couldn’t explain why.

“And how did the first day go?” asked Kylo.

“Good,” said Matt. “They like—” Matt started to say, before he stopped. What was he about to say? That they liked him? No, that couldn’t have been it. That would have been a lie, and besides, it wouldn’t have mattered much to Kylo whether Matt had been liked or not by his new peers.

“It went well,” Matt decided to say and nothing else. He didn’t tell him what General Hux had said to him in the empty corridor outside the mess hall. That was unimportant. There was only one thing that was important to Matt and had been since Kylo had charged him with the task of infiltrating the ranks of the stormtoopers by going undercover as a radar technician. Matt swore to himself that he would do the task well, and make Kylo Ren proud. He would do it in the hopes that he might find a place, apart of that bigger something he was slowly losing Kylo to.


	3. Woes of a Would-Be Emperor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren heads off. Hux hates him...except he doesn't, but he wished he did.

The first time Hux saw Kylo Ren without his mask they had been aboard the _Finalizer_ for three months. Hux was the newly appointed general, stiff and formal in his charcoal grey general’s uniform, feeling like a child playing at war. Kylo Ren was the tall imposing enforcer, slashing away at the console of a Captain’s Control Room with the ignited blade of his lightsaber.

That was before Hux began to feel anything for the man—like or dislike or anything else in between.

“Lord Ren,” said the general, with his hands folded behind his back. He addressed the raging knight with all the nonchalance he could muster, as though the man before him wasn’t in the process of annihilating an integral part of their warship. “Your presence is required on the bridge.”

Ren paused in his rage and said over his heaving shoulders, with a startlingly contradictory dispassion, “Required? By who?”

“By me,” said Hux and at that Ren turned to look at the general. His skin was pale and looked nearly translucent under the fluorescent lighting, and there was sheen of sweat on his face from the exertion. Strands of dark hair clung to the sweat on his forehead, but it was his lips the general’s eyes fell to, full and flushed. Hux wondered if Ren knew he was gnawing on his bottom lips or if the movement was subconscious.

The general had to shake his head and pull his eyes away to clear his thoughts.

The man was young. Hux knew he ought to be surprised by the revelation, but he had surmised as much from the knight’s proclivity to express his frustrations in fits of rage. And the truth was, the knight’s youth came as somewhat of a relief to the general. It would seem he was not the only child playing at war.

The red band vanished from the hilt of the saber with a sharp inhale. “You came personally to escort me to the bridge? I’m honored, General,” said Ren. Hux didn’t care for the ill concealed sarcasm in the voice. “For a moment I thought you came here to gloat.”

Hux lengthened his spine to give himself more height, an automatic response to the enmity directed at him. The general had been aware that he was directly responsible for the knight’s latest fit, but he had not come to apologize, nor had he come to gloat.

“I had only one singular interest in offering Supreme Leader Snoke my honest assessment against your proposal and that was to ensure the victory of The First Order,” said Hux. He refrained from stating that the only reason the Supreme Leader had headed his advice over that of his apprentice’s in this particular instance was due to the former’s knowledge of warfare which the latter sorely lacked. “It was nothing against you.”

“Oh? Well in that case, I’m so glad you’ve cleared things up,” said Ren. “Otherwise I might have been angry.”

Ren turned back to the shattered console. An angry, electrifying surge of power tore through the air as the lightsaber reignited. The knight brought the saber over his head and resumed his rampage with the light from the lightsaber coloring the room red, while orange sparks flew.

“As you can see, General, I’m currently preoccupied,” said Ren over the chaos. His voice was controlled, as though the voice alone was an entity that existed separately from the rest of him. “I’ll join you on the bridge shortly.”

Hux felt a frustration of his own coursing through him, accompanied by the ever-present twinge for a cigarette. He pressed the twinge away with a finger to his temples and a reminder there was too much to do, with no time for smoke break.

Hux took in the sight of Ren’s destruction and noticed that the knight seemed to have favored a particular spot to the right of the console. “You should move a little to the left—even it out.”

“Leave!” said Ren sharply.

And gladly, Hux obliged.

General Hux was not yet sure what to make of Ren, yet he had an inkling that would not like the man.

***

The second time General Hux saw Kylo Ren without his mask, Ren had been sitting crossed legged in meditation in one of the training chambers.

Once again, Hux had come to personally collect Ren when the knight had failed to report to the bridge when he was expected. It had grown to become a tiresome dance between the two.

A year had passed since Hux took command of the _Finalizer_ and Ren had been assigned by the Supreme Leader to act as the enforcer and liaison for the Knights of Ren. The tide of the war had changed; the resistance had grown in strength under the leadership of General Organa and the New Republic had grown bolder and more secure under that strength. And yet, unexpectedly, it was Kylo Ren who had risen to become one of the greatest threats to General Hux’s command. Ren’s cutthroat methods of keeping their men in line only severed to destroy the morale the general worked tirelessly to instill. He questioned the general at every turn, challenged when he could, undermined when he couldn’t. The quarrels between the two had quickly become the stuff of legends.

And yet each time the knight failed to do what was expected of him, it fell to Hux to mind him like the guardian of a spoiled toddler. Tasks involving Ren always left Hux feeling demeaned. It seemed a cruel joke to be honored with a rank such as his, only to be spat on by the likes of the Kylo Ren. Still, when Ren required minding, the general minded every time, for reasons he couldn’t explain to himself.

By then, General Hux had grown to hate Kylo Ren. He often thought about how it would feel to have the knight at the other end of his blaster. Murder had never been a thing he aspired to. Killing was disorderly and messy. He preferred destroying his enemies with careful calculation and elegant execution, but Ren brought out a side of him that longed for chaos over order, that longed to see his own hands dirtied with blood and grime. He could kill Kylo Ren, he often thought, walk away with his uniform stained and filthy, and enjoy it, like he enjoyed the taste of cigarette smoke in his lungs after a long day.

Ren sat like a statue in the center of the training chamber, his eyes closed, and his breathing so quiet, he might have stopped breathing all together. The knight didn’t stir at all, not when the blast door slid opened, not when Hux moved around the seated figure to stand in front of him. It was almost as though the body had been vacated--a shell, devoid of a soul. Hux had never seen anyone so still, didn’t think there was a single living thing in the galaxy capable of such focused tranquility.

The sight was so astounding to Hux that he could not stop himself from kneeling down before the knight to examine the phenomenon closer. Even as he drew near, virtually eliminating all space between them, Ren did not move or come out of his meditation. Perhaps Ren wasn’t even aware that he was there, Hux thought.

The general’s eyes traced the contours of the knight’s unmasked face. He looked different from the sullen, raging boy Hux had seen tearing through the control room a year ago, but the lips, those lips were still the same, full and rose colored, and pouted out on his rested face. Hux would never have thought that there could be such refinement in features as peculiar Ren’s. But what Hux found most endearing about that face, were not the lips, but how vulnerable the powerful knight looked. Hux questioned how much of that vulnerability was due to Ren’s meditative state and upon that thought crossing his mind, Hux considered that there might be an unique opportunity laid out before him while the knight’s body sat abandoned by his consciousness.

The general was suddenly possessed by a dark temptation. Unable to fight it, he leaned in closer towards Ren, watching his face carefully to discern any signs of consciousness, as he wrapped both his hands around the other man’s throat.

There was the warmth of the knight’s body beneath Hux’s fingers, and the soft drumming of his heartbeat. In that moment, as he held Ren’s life in the palm of his hands, Hux realized that he had never felt more powerful in his entire life, and he hated himself for that realization.

“If you want to kill me, you’re going to have to squeeze harder than that.”

Hux’s muscles tightened at the sudden sound and Ren’s eyes fluttered opened. Under the light his eyes were almost golden, and alight with fevering intensity, Hux almost shuddered at the sight of them—almost. He moved the pull his hands away, but when he did he found that they were frozen around Ren’s throat, as though his hands had turned to stone.

Ren arched a single eyebrow. “Well? Go on then. Do it.”

“Ren—” Hux found himself straining desperately to move his fingers. He couldn’t pull away, Hux discovered, but could move closer to tighten his grip around Ren’s neck. It was not by his own accord.

“Do it,” Ren breathed sharply.

“Ren, release my hands,” Hux said through clenched jaws.

“This is what you want, isn’t it, General? My life in your hands,” said Ren calmly. “You often think about killing me—”

“—Ren…”

“—and now you can. Do you feel it, General? All that power at the tips of your fingers? All you have to do is squeeze.”

“Release me.”

Ren coxed his head ever so slight to the side, and his eyes bore into Hux’s. A pressure began to build against his skull, throbbing and unpleasant and completely foreign. Hux wrestled against that pressure, but there was nothing he could do to force it out.

Anger began to mound and course through Hux, consuming him. He had never hated anyone more than Kylo Ren at that very moment, for making him feel week and powerless. Hux could have killed him then, he was certain of it, he could have squeezed the life out of the man before him and savored every last moment. But the truth came to him with no small amount of mockery, that if Hux were to succeed in taking Kylo Ren’s life at that moment, it would only be because Ren allowed him to. And what would be the point in that?

“Let me go, Ren,” Hux growled.

Ren held on. “Look at you, General, you’re so empty, just a blank canvas for your father to paint on all of his ambitions, all of his wants. But what do you want, General? Do you even know?”

“Get out of my head.”

“This isn’t what you want. You never wanted to be General.” Ren’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “There’s something there…something else…” Ren leaned in closer. And inexplicably, on his face, appeared a look of bewilderment. A crease formed between Ren’s brows and the bewilderment gave way to suspicion. “You’re hiding something…”

Hux’s felt every muscle in his body tighten at the sound of those words, and a sudden panic rushed through him. An urgency to get Ren out of his mind rose from that panic and Hux felt like an animal in a trap. He felt his mind thrashing against the intruder.

Ren drew him closer. Hux steeled himself. He had none of Ren’s powers, but he had been trained for this, he told himself.

“What are you hiding, General Hux?” said Ren, his voice sounded far away, as though he weren’t speaking to the general at all. “Show me what you’re hiding…” he murmured.

Hux conjured up all of his strength from deep within him, recalling all those years spent drilling himself in stimulation chambers, learning how to seal away his deepest secret from those like Ren.

“Get out of my head!” he shouted, and with one fierce push, he shoved himself towards Ren, hands closing in around Ren’s neck, knocking the dark knight over on his back.

Ren’s concentration broke, and in an instant, Hux felt the pressure lift from his skull.

Pinned down beneath Hux, Ren looked up at him, dark eyes wide with genuine shock.

And there was Hux, bent forward, with his legs on either side of Ren’s body, and his hands tight around that neck, pressing in, his will finally his own. There was something intimate about all of it, Hux couldn’t keep himself from noticing. With Ren’s body beneath him, those full, pink lips parted in surprise, an unanticipated desire to possess Ren rippled through his body all the way down to his groin, Hux willed his body not to betray him. In his adolescent years, his body might not have complied, but Hux’s will was stronger now. He fought away that want with another, conflicting desire, the desire to choke the life out of the man who’s throat he had his hands around.

Ren gagged as Hux’s thumbs dug into his Adam’s apple, but he didn’t try to fight it. Just a little tighter, and Hux would cut off the air in Ren’s lungs, and he wanted to do it, more than anything he wanted to do it…but something stopped him.

Something inside of him.

“Fuck,” said Hux and releasing his grip on Ren so violently, Ren’s head slammed backwards against the ground. Hux climbed off of him, standing up tall over Ren, still collapsed on the ground. “You’re insane,” he spat.

To that Ren laughed a hoarse, choking laugh, making no attempts pick himself up. “Yes,” came his strained voice. “I probably am.”

Hux scoffed before he walked away in disgust at Ren, at himself, at all of it.

***

His father always told him that the need of the whole was greater than the need of one. It was that philosophy that prompted General Hux to seek out Kylo Ren in his chambers the evening following their incident in the training room.

The event that had transpired between the two that day had shaken Hux to his core. Ren had gotten into his mind, he had gotten close to Hux’s secret, and it was because Hux had allowed him to do it. When Hux thought back to Ren, rifling through his thoughts, so close to digging up what he had buried beneath, the general realized how close he had come to endangering everything he had devoted his life to. He thought about his father, about how quickly everything they had built together would be torn away from them because of his weakness.

His father would not allow such weakness had he been there with him, and so General Hux would not allow that weakness in himself.

And so, for the need of the whole, that surpassed his own needs, Hux sought to cast aside his pride, despite his hatred for Kylo Ren.

The easiest thing to do, Hux knew, was to give in to his temptation and simply kill Ren and be rid of the threat the knight posed against Hux and all that he was working for. But, alas, the knight was the precious pet of the Snoke, and they needed Snoke. Killing Ren, Hux acknowledged with much regret, would be a foolish strategic move. No, there was only one thing Hux could do. He needed to make peace with Snoke’s apprentice even if it pained him to do it.

Hux stood outside the blast door to Ren’s chambers, requesting entrance. The possibility that Ren may refuse to open that door crossed his mind, it was just the sort of churlish behavior he expected from Ren.

Almost as soon as the thought escaped his mind, the blast door slid open with a sharp _swoosh!_

Hux closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, reminding himself why he was doing this, and then he stepped through, into the lit room and found himself face to face with…

…Ren?

Hux started. He blinked at the display before him, wondering if perhaps it was a trick of some sort. The trick blinked back and stared back at the general with its face slack, and eyes like an animal frozen in fear in the presence of a hunter.

Hux took a step closer to the creature in front of him taking in the sight of him. It was dressed all in white, a jumpsuit, not of the ship for it lacked the First Order insignia. And it wore Ren’s face under a mess of orange curls meant to pass for hair with its face partially obscured by large glasses. It wasn’t Ren though, Hux was sure of it, not with it’s uncertain gaze and the slump way it carried it’s body as though it didn’t quite know how to wear a body that towered so high.

 

But mostly it was in the creature’s face, a face that, despite all its resemblance to Ren’s, lacked the upturned arrogance and the harsh world weary tension that was always visible in the lines of Ren’s face. This one’s face was younger, like a newborn still trying to find it’s place in the world.

Hux stepped closer still and the creature before looked anxious and took a step back, and then, poised itself to run. But General Hux with his military reflexes reached out and took ahold of the creature’s arms, pulling it back towards him. It was warm in his grip, warm like a living, breathing thing. So it wasn’t a humanoid droid…

Hux whisked the creature around, so that they were face to face.

The creature leaned backwards, its body tense, but it’s attempts to pull itself away from Hux only made Hux tighten his hold and pull the thing closer to him.

“Well, you are quite the surprise,” said Hux.

The creature’s breathing was short and sharp. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

 “It speaks!” said the general. “What’s your name?”

The creature’s brows furrowed at the question as though it did not comprehend the general’s inquiry. Instead it merely repeated. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“You know one of the many privileges that comes with my rank,” said Hux, “is that there isn’t anywhere I’m not supposed to be on this ship.” Then Hux added as an after thought, “Besides, you let me in.”

The creature looked taken aback by the response. “It was an accident,” it said a little too defensively.

“Not much of one,” said Hux. “Blast doors don’t open on their own.” Hux brought a hand to the creature’s face, wrapping his fingers around its chin and tilting it up to examine the face from a different angle.

A twin seemed an obvious explanation, but no, it wasn’t that. Twins resembled each other, but this one was identical to Ren in face, right down to the very last mole right beside its nose. If it weren’t for the hair and the glasses and the way it carried itself, Hux might have mistaken it for Ren.

“You’re a clone,” said Hux. All those times Ren went on and on about utilizing a clone army, Hux never imagined he’d have his own clone hidden away in his chambers. “So you’re Ren’s little secret.” Hux couldn’t keep himself from chuckling. It was too good to be true, the perfect leverage, the one singular thing that might give him an upper hand against the Knight of Ren.

But as the thought floated through his mind, the clone reacted. It’s eyes glossed over with terror and the color drained from its already pale face. Before Hux could make sense of things, a series of images and frantic thoughts were pushed into his mind and Hux saw why it was that Ren had kept his clone a secret. This clone was not like any other that had been created in the history of the galaxy, this one was born from the Force, pulled into existence by the sheer power of Ren’s will. And for reasons that Hux only barely understood, Ren was desperate to keep his master from learning of the sentient being he created and allowed to live.

Hux released the clone, staggered back against the pressure in his head, the pressure so much like the one he had felt when Ren invaded his mind. This clone, Hux realized, had the ability to wield the Force.

Strange and stranger…

Hux would not have thought such a gift would be inherited by a clone, but perhaps this one was different.

Hux steadied himself. He quirked his lips, eyes sparkling with ill-contained mirth. With his hands stretched out, he grabbed a hold of the clone once more, resting a hand beneath his chin, and stroking his thumb across the clone’s lips, full and rose colored, just like Ren’s. “Well, Clone, I see your predicament. You don’t have to worry, I’ll keep your little secret, no one else will know. And when you see Kylo Ren, tell him for me, that I want no more animosity between us, let him take my silence as a sign of truce.”

The clone’s eyes grew large and bug-like, and he looked shocked-stupid by what he had just heard.

There was a tickle of a laugh in Hux’s chest, all of it was too amusing to bare. Hux should have known, that Kylo Ren, in all his fool-hardly recklessness, would have a secret like this tucked away in his chambers. There was hardly a need to destroy Ren at all, it would only be a mere matter of time before Ren destroyed himself. All General Hux needed to do was play his cards just right, and the debris from the inevitable destruction of Ren would fall right in his favor.

***

Kylo Ren truly had a flare for melodrama. 

Less than an hour after Hux returned to his own chambers for the evening, Ren raged through the blast door bringing with him a cloud of coppery energy that that made the air dense and smothering. Hux sat at the table in the living quarters of his considerably luxurious chamber—and by luxurious he meant spacy with enough room to move about—he was half way through a pack of cigarettes when Ren stormed in.

“Please, do invite yourself in,” said Hux, with only one half of his lips. The other half clenched the cigarette, which flapped up and down between his words.

“You,” Ren seethed, “you over stepped your boundaries, Hux.” Ren spat his name out like it was an insult.

Hux, drew in a deep breath with the cigarette on his lips, and blew the smoke out through his nostrils. “I have no boundaries on this ship, Ren,” said Hux. “No one out ranks me, not even you?”

Ren slammed his fists down on the table, and it trembled beneath his strength. He bent forward, metal mask in Hux’s face.

“Are you certain of that?” said Ren, the mechanical voice amplified every syllable. “You lack judgment, General if you think it wise to snoop around in my private ch—”

“—Snoop?” Hux said between a laugh and an exhalation of smoke. “I didn’t go to your chambers to snoop, Ren. You might be predisposed to stealing information you are not privy to, but I am not, and I have interest in snooping for your secrets.” Hux reached the end of his cigarette, and as always, the sight of his finished smoke filled him with a subtle melancholy and the immediate need for another. He pressed the cigarette into the ashtray beside his elbow. “You can’t hold it against me if I happen to stumble upon one of your secrets.”

“Stumble?” said Ren and the sharp sound of pressurized air that came from the mask sounded an awful lot like a scoff. “You deliberately went to my chambers.”

“Yes, Ren, I deliberately went to your chambers,” said Hux, as he pulled another cigarette from the carton. He tore the filter off the end of the cigarette, and dropped it into the ashtray. “I went to find you in the hopes of making amends.”

Gradually, Ren pulled away from the table, standing up straight and towering above the general again, and Hux so wished he could see the look on Ren’s face as he did so.

“Amends…”

“Yes, amends, Ren,” said Hux, lighting his cigarette.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” the voice came out smoothly without emotional affliction.

“I certainly hope you aren’t, Ren. Despite everything, you’re my Second in Command and I wouldn’t—”

“I am not your Second in Command!”

“Arguable,” said Hux, enjoying the indignation in Ren’s words if not in his voice.

Ren’s chest heaved. “What game are you playing, General?”

“None,” said Hux. “Not everything is a game, Ren.”

“It is to you. I’ve looked into your mind, it’s all a game to you: this war, your rank…me”

“Then you saw wrong,” said Hux. “None of it is a game to me….especially not you.” Hux pushed back his chair and stood. “We all have secrets, Ren, and it’s as I’ve said, I have no interest in yours. If you insist on keeping your pet a secret from your master, it’s not my place to say anything. I’ll keep your secret. Look into my mind now, you know it to be true…I’ll be just between us three, you, me and…did you give it a name?”

Ren’s hand rose to Hux’s face, and within an instant Hux felt that pressure against his skull as Ren pulled at Hux’s thoughts. Hux stood patiently, telling himself that he was allowing Ren into his head, by choice. Though that was a small consolation knowing that it wouldn’t have made a difference if the opposite had been true.

Hux concentrated on closing his thoughts, locking away what he did not want to be found, pushing only what he wanted to the front of his mind, just as he had trained to do. All those years of simulation had just barely prepared him for the real thing, but Hux hoped it would suffice.

As Ren lingered inside his mind, Hux began to wonder if Ren had other purposes in mind than simply reading his thoughts. What little he knew about the mysticism surrounding the Force, was that those like Ren could do more than just read the minds of others, they can alter minds as well. Ren, if he wanted to, could have simply pulled the knowledge of the clone’s existence out of Hux’s mind, like snatching sweets out of an infant’s hand, and there would have been nothing Hux could do to stop him.

 _Would Ren do it, though?_ Hux wondered.

“How I wish I could, General,” said Ren, responding to the general’s silent question. “But the Supreme Leader forbade me from tampering with your mind.”

“Did he?” said Hux. “I’ll have to thank him for that.”

Ren lowered his hand and his presence in Hux’s mind vanished as though it never were. “We couldn’t have the capable mind of our First in Command compromised now could we, General?”

Hux ignored the sardonic quip. “Did you like what you saw in there, Ren?” asked Hux of his mind.

“No,” said Ren. “You’re still hiding something.”

“We all have secrets,” said Hux. “Mine do not concern you anymore than yours concern me. I trust you’ll respect that in light of everything.

To that Ren said nothing. Ren didn’t trust him, of that Hux had no doubt, but he had no fair reason to suspect him either, and for now, that was enough.

Everyone has secrets General Hux most of all.

“If there’s nothing more, Lord Ren, it’s late.”

***

General Hux came of age from the ashes of the Galactic Empire. He was shepherd into adulthood by the ghosts of great imperials. His formative years were spent in the Unknown Regions, amongst Imperial Officers holding on to the last shred of life of the once powerful Empire-it was from that shred that the First Order rose and General Hux was born.

Hux knew, since the moment he was old enough to know anything at all, that he was destined to rule. It was a promise his father whispered into his ears.

“We will restore the Empire one day, and when that day comes, my son, you will be emperor,” his father had said. Hux was an infant still feeding at his mother’s breasts.

He was a boy of merely five the first time his father shoved a blaster into his hands and told him to take a life. “One day my son, you won’t have to dirty your hands with such a dreadful task, you’ll command others to do it for you, and it will be an honor for them. Until then, you must learn to fight and to kill and to lead. An emperor must be faster than his army, wiser than his subjects and stronger than his foes.”

By his seventeenth year Hux had risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel Commandant, barely a man in his firmly pressed uniform and sparse sprigs of red hair on his face, he was the youngest of his rank and it was the first time he felt like a child playing at war. But the war wasn’t a game, it was real. At long last, a lifetime of whispered promises of restoring a fallen empire began to manifest into something tangible and obtainable.

And Hux’s destiny began to call to him.

It was then that Hux heard the name for the first time. A boy called Ben Solo, born to rebels who had seen the fall of the great empire—war heroes they were called by treacherous fools.

“He could be a great asset to us,” said the mysterious figure known as Snoke.

Hux had been sitting beside his father on the high council of the First Order, listening to the man swaddled in a black cloak, his gaunt, deformed face shielded by the hood pulled over his head.

“The boy possesses immense power. Turning him to our side will ensure our victory in restoring the Imperial Empire.”

Hux didn’t like Snoke. No one did. It was power Snoke sought, wanting the empire for himself, that much was clear. But the man held power no other could wield, power they needed to win the war.

“Patience, my son,” his father had said to him the day they aligned themselves with the mysterious figure and his mystical powers. “A good ruler knows where he is strong and where is weak, and he knows how to utilized the powers in others to make himself stronger. Our alliance with Snoke, and those of his ilk, if indeed there are others, is only a means to an end. Be patient, and the empire will be yours.”

A means to an end.

Hux was twenty-nine when he was appointed General. And he had spent a decade standing silently as Snoke rose to power, and declared himself the Supreme Leader of the First Order. It was all a means to an end.

Before Supreme Leader Snoke, Hux bent the knee and obeyed his every order, but in the shadows he waited, and he was patient. And he trained to guard his thoughts and hide his secret in a place where even the mystical powers of Snoke could not reach.

“The best way to lie is to fool yourself into believing in your lie. You will play the part of the faithful servant of the Supreme Leader and you will believe it. Give them no reason to search your mind for the truth. When you are aboard that ship, son, the only truth you know is that you are a general of the First Order, in service to Supreme Leader Snoke.”

“And then what?” said General Hux to his father on their final night together.

“And then you wait. Snoke wants to restore the empire as much as we do.”

“He wants the empire for himself,” said Hux.

“Yes,” said his father. “And you will help him, that is your job. Help him and wait and while you wait, you will watch. Study Snoke, find his weakness, and when the time is right, when the empire has been restored, you will use that weakness to destroy him and claim the throne for yourself.”

The former was easy, the latter was not. If there was any particular talent General Hux possessed it was that he knew how to spot a man’s weakness. And if Snoke was indeed a man, beneath his monstrous deformity, which, Hux was certain he was, then like most men, his greatest weakness rested in his faith in his most powerful weapon.

Kylo Ren was Supreme Leader Snoke’s most powerful weapon.

But though finding Snoke’s weakness was simple, exploiting Snoke’s weakness was the difficult. Kylo Ren, with all his infinite powers, was not a weapon that can be easily wielded by one other than Snoke, especially against Snoke himself.

It was not enough for Hux to find Snoke’s weakness, he needed to find Ren’s as well. General Hux had thought that a near impossible task until he found that weakness in the form of a Ren-shaped clone, standing in Ren’s chambers, stunned stupid and gawking at him through thick lenses.

It all fell into place after that. It was not the clone itself that made Ren, but Ren’s sentimental and passionate nature. Hux had recognized both vices in Ren the moment they met. Despite all of Ren’s efforts to beat himself clean of the things that weakened him, they still clung to him, like sand clings to wool. Ren, cared for his clone, that much was clear, he would not have brought him aboard the _Finalizer_ , hidden him in his chambers if that were not the case. Ren might even care enough for the clone to protect him from harm at all costs. And if General Hux was a betting man, he’d wager that Ren’s affections for that clone might be the very thing that would turn Ren against his master, should the Supreme Leader wish the clone harm—and the Supreme Leader would.

The plan was simple then. As with all great battle plans, timing was of the utmost importance. So General Hux will be patient, and he will wait…until the time is right. And when that time comes, the general need only to exploit Ren’s secret and watch as the Supreme Leader and his greatest weapon destroyed each other.

Kylo Ren and his clone were just a means to an end.

What Hux never foresaw his own weakness threatening to undo him.

In the cruelest of ironies, Hux’s weakness appeared in the form of Kylo Ren, still and silent behind his mask, as they walked out of an audience with Snoke together a few days after the general had discovered the clone.

Hux had kept Ren’s secret, just as he had promised. And as they walked away from the faded hologram with the Supreme Leader none the wiser of the secret that was now shared between Hux and Ren, Hux expected that to be the end of that. But it wasn’t.

“General,” said Ren, when he was certain Snoke's presence had faded from the Finalizer. “You kept your silence.” Hux didn’t know whether or not it was his imagination, but the tone in Ren’s voice seemed softer, even through the mask’s amplifier.

“Well yes, I said I would didn’t I?” said Hux.

“Yes,” said Ren. “But you didn’t have to.” Hux was sure this time that it wasn’t his imagination when he heard the humility in Ren’s voice. It took him by surprise, and he had no response. It was just as well. In the general’s silence, Ren, turned on his heels and stalked away, the clanging of his boots echoing as he went.

Hux had to admit he had neither prepared nor expected such a reaction from Ren. And that was the first time Hux found himself pondering the baffling and mysterious dimensions that made up Kylo Ren. People were made to be complicated and layered, of that, Hux knew very well, but Kylo Ren was something else entirely. He was a conundrum, a mass of unpredictable and contradictory emotions. Despite knowing of Ren’s sentimental nature, he’d never have thought that the haughty knight would be so sentimental as to be easily moved by such a small gesture. Yet there it was.

Something changed after that. The change came in the guise of uncharacteristic cooperation and professional amity, Hux never thought Ren was capable of. Ren challenged the general less, he appeared when he was expected and only injected his input when it was asked of him.

General Hux found the abrupt change so unsettling, it was like the calm before the storm. _It’s a trap_ , Hux thought. _It has to be._

And it turned out he was right, but even the general, with all his perceptiveness, could not have foreseen how dangerous a trap it was, or how miserably he would fall in to it. The fall came slowly though, like all deadly things, it took its unsuspecting victim quietly.

In retrospect, Hux could pinpoint the exact moment he stumbled into the trap.

After nearly a month of Ren’s drastically improved behavior, one day, abruptly Ren failed to turn up in a meeting with the officers. It happened to be the day they were set to discuss the construction of the Starkiller Base and Ren knew his attendance in that particular meeting was of the utmost importance. Nothing had been more important to General Hux than the construction of the Starkiller Base, a weapon that had been conceived from the general’s own mind. He had spent the months since it’s conception reveling in his own genius, nothing had ever felt more precious to him than that base, the thing that would set in motion the path to his awaiting destiny. To instill such love, and trepidation and pride in his own creation was, perhaps, what fatherhood felt like. Of course, of all the days for Ren to revert back to his old behavior, it would be that day, at the expense of the general’s precious Starkiller.

When an hour turned to two and still there was no sign of Ren, General Hux with an exterior calmness that contradicted the ire within him, drew himself from the head of the table and stalked out of the room in search of Ren.

He found the knight in the same training room where their scrabble had transpired all those nights ago. It felt like an eternity had passed since that night, but it didn’t stop the feeling of dejavu that squirmed uncomfortably through Hux as he entered the room.

Ren was, as he had been the last time, sitting crossed legged in the center of the room with his mask off, and, like the last time, Hux approached the knight and crouched down in front of him to find his eyes closed. Yet, cutting through the sameness there was something terribly different. Hux noticed it immediately, the moment he neared Ren.

The knight’s body was trembling and his breathing was heavy. It was such a disconcerting contrast to the stillness Hux remembered Ren had possessed in his mediation the last time.

“Ren…” said Hux carefully. He reached out to touch the knight, but then thought better of it and withdrew his hand.

Ren opened his eyes and they wet and shining through red rims. It was then that Hux saw, under the faint light that had been turned down to ten percent, the wet streaks that ran down Ren’s cheeks.

“Ren, are you…” Hux began to say, but the words got lost along the way. What was it he was about to say? _Are you alright?_ Perhaps. Those were, the words one was expected to say under such circumstances, were they not?

Hux felt his mouth open and then close, as he struggled to find other words, but before his mind could conjure up any, Ren spoke. “I can’t control it.” His voice was faint, and his eyes were hazy and he wasn’t looking at the general, but past him, as though speaking from a trance.

“Control what?” said Hux.

He half expected Ren not to respond, and yet Ren did. “The darkness,” Ren rasped. “And the light. I feel both sides in me and I can’t control either one.”

Their eyes met and in those eyes Hux saw agony unlike any he could fathom. And Hux felt something within himself that he didn’t recognize. Was it compassion? Surly not. Compassion was a luxury afforded to people who did not have the weight of duty crushing down upon their shoulders, for compassion, like sentiment, was the death of duty.

Whatever it was that Hux did feel, it was strong enough to cause him to dismiss the thoughts of his precious Starkiller from his mind, and settle down more comfortably on the floor.

Ren’s eyes flickered. “The base...”

“It can wait,” was all that Hux said.

Together they fell into silence and there, in the silence, they sat for hours.

***

Ren was absent the next day. It was the first time since the day he set foot aboard the _Finalizer_ that he didn’t see Ren at all, stalking the halls in his heavy booted shoes, looming in that dark wardrobe like a shade haunting their ship.

Every so often, between the drills, and the paperwork, Hux would look up, with an odd feeling like something was missing. He’d shake that feeling away. Wherever Ren was, it wasn’t his concern. It was an average day, with no pressing matters that required the mystical insights of Snoke’s apprentice, and Hux reminded himself repeatedly that he didn’t need Ren that day. Still, he was accustomed to Ren’s presence whether or not he was needed. Or rather, particularly when he wasn’t needed.

With the late afternoon, however, the general’s thoughts were brought away from the absence of Ren by a rather disturbing report.

Captain Phasma stood before his desk, dressed all in chrome, as she delivered the report with just the right amount of professional detachment Hux had appreciated in her.

“Cats?” said Hux, when captain had finished speaking.

“Kittens, sir. A litter of them,” Captain Phasma reiterated. “Found hidden beneath a Trooper’s bunker.”

“How did they manage it?” Hux heard himself ask, though, truly it was more out of curiosity than necessity, as was the next question he asked, “And where did they get the cats from?”

“We didn’t ask, sir. We can interrogate the unit responsible for those answers, if you would like?”

“No,” said Hux. The thought of wasting time and resources interrogating their own men over a litter of cats might have been laughable, if it weren’t for the fact that behind that issue, was something far more concerning. “An entire unit was responsible for harboring the cats?”

“As far as we know, sir, yes.”

Hux grind down on his back teeth. “Do a thorough sweep for any other signs of non-conformity amongst the Troopers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“See to it that the unit responsible are punished and reconditioned.”

“Already being done, sir,” said Captain Phasma. “And what of the kittens, sir?”

Hux looked at Phasma steadily and said smoothly, “Take them to the incinerator.”

A lesser solider might have balked at the order, but Captain Phasma didn’t so much as pause before she straightened her back, saluted and said, “Yes, sir.”

As soon as Captain Phasma disappeared behind the blast door and Hux was alone in his office, he reached for a cigarette and began to pace. The report angered the general and that anger showed itself in the subtle tension in his facial muscles, that could have translated easily to mild irritation by one who did not know any better. The anger mounted with ever second he replayed Captain Phasma’s report in his mind, anger and something else too—disappointment.

There were few things in the galaxy General Hux had faith in, and his father’s life’s work, the system of conditioning soldiers through vivid simulation, had been the very thing he had rooted his faith in. All those years of watching soldiers training on those capital ships, of training along side of them, he’d never once doubted the fealty his comrades had to cause the cause, and to him. What good was an army to a general, no, to a conqueror, if he could not believe in the loyalty of his men?

 _It’s just a litter of cats,_ Hux told himself. It was, and it wasn’t. Hux breathed in the smoke and allowed the nicotine to fill his veins. Perhaps this was just a flux, an isolated incident that would not be repeated, and not the beginning ripples of an even greater turmoil.

There was much work to be done, however, and to fixate on the matter was pointless, and so, storing the issue away to be examined later, Hux finished his cigarette, and went about his day.

***

At the end of the day, as Hux was about to retire for the evening, he came upon two Stormtroopers, scurrying about the corridors on all fours, like a couple of numbskulls who’ve lost their minds. They leapt to their feet immediately upon finding the general, standing over them with his face hardened in a look of great displeasure.

“Sir,” said numbskull number one, standing at attention. “We can explain, sir.”

“Good, explain, solider.” And for their sake Hux hoped they could explain themselves well.

Though Hux could not see the faces of the Troopers beneath their helmets, he did hear numbskull number two gulp audibly.

“One of the kittens escaped,” said number two. “We’re trying to locate her, sir.”

Those damn cats again. Hux had hoped he’d heard the last of it with Captain Phasma’s report.

“A single, small cat managed to escape the two of you?” said Hux in disbelief.

“Cats are fast,” said numbskull number one. “Even the babies, sir.”

Babies. Shit. The last thing Hux needed was for the animals to be referred to as ‘babies.’

“We’ve managed to incinerate all the others as ordered, sir,” number two chimed in, as though offering the fact as consolation.

“Oh well that’s alright then,” said Hux coolly. Before he could say anything else, Hux felt a soft prodding on the toe of his boot.

The Troopers’ heads dropped downwards to the general’s feet. Hux followed in suit, and there he found a small ball of orange fur leaning against his shoe.

Hux bent down and with two fingers he pinched the cat around the neck and lifted it off the ground. It mewled noisily, the sound emitting from its lungs were louder than one might have expected from a creature so small. Hux brought it up to his eyes, and the thing looked back at him. Looking into its eyes, Hux quickly learned, was a mistake. The animal’s eyes were big and round, and green. Its trembling gaze was helpless and frightful and yet despite the fear in its eyes, the creature’s twitched its tiny limbs in an attempt to escape as it screamed for its life.

It’s so small, Hux thought, and so new to life, and yet it was so determined to survive. Hux, in spite of himself, had to admire the animal’s tenacity. It was astounding, he should honor a mere ball of fur with his admiration when there were so few people Hux had met his life that he’d given such an honor to.

“You’ve found her, sir,” said one of the numbskulls. Hux hadn’t paid much attention to which one it was.

“Only because she allowed herself to be found,” said Hux. Did he really just call it a she?

“We’ll take her to the incinerator, right away, sir.”

“No,” said Hux, surprising even himself.

“…Sir?”

Hux lowered the cat, drawing up his other hand to cradle her. “You’re dismissed, both of you,” he said.

When the Troopers scrambled away, Hux looked down at the cat that had nestled into his arms. Hux asked himself what he was doing. Every instinct in his body told him to hand the animal off to the nearest Trooper and have it be taken to the incinerator for destruction, and Hux was one who always listened to his instincts. But something had come over him that night, and with the animal in his arms, he put one foot in front of the other until he found himself lying in bed in his chambers with the cat’s warm body against his chest.

The animal purred as she slept, secure and comfortable resting against the man who had ordered the destruction of her litter mates. Did she know? Hux wondered. Did cats possess such perception? Could they sense the vile and wicked nature of the creatures surrounding them? Or where they like humans? Lacking in acuity and judgment in their desperateness to find companionship and belongingness?

Again, Hux asked himself what he was doing. Kindness was not a trait that was innate to Hux… not that there was anything particularly kind about what he had done for the cat.

" _I think it’s kind.”_

The voice cut through Hux’s thoughts, sharp and definite as though the owner of the voice were speaking to Hux from right beside him. But the voice was in his mind and it was not his own. It was a deep voice, low and smooth with a distinctive nasaly tone that Hux would recognize anywhere.

 _“Ren,”_ Hux thought. With that voice came an odd buzzing against his skull, like light waves of electricity were surging into his brain. _“And where have you been all day.”_

 _“I needed some time alone,”_ thought Ren into Hux’s mind. It was a remarkably honest answer which Hux had not expected.

 _“You could have given notice,”_ thought Hux sourly.

Ren was silent and in that silence Hux found himself wondering if perhaps Ren had gone from his mind. And then Ren spoke again. _“Did you need me?”_

 _“No,”_ thought Hux. _“But since when has that mattered?”_

 _“I didn’t realize you’d miss me,”_ said Ren, and Hux could swear he sounded smug.

 _I didn’t._ Hux wanted to say, but he stopped himself. There was no point. The man was in his head, he’d spot the denial for what it was. _For fucks sake,_ _thought Hux, it’s not true is it? Had I missed him?_ He ceased that line of thinking upon reminding himself that his thoughts were not his alone. If Ren had heard any of it, he said nothing.

 _“She looks like you, you know?”_ came Ren’s voice.

“ _Who?”_

_“Your cat.”_

_“She’s not my cat,”_ thought Hux, _“and don’t say that, that’s ridiculous.”_

_“She has your colors.”_

Hux glanced down to the sleeping cat on his chest, he thought about her ginger hair and green eyes, it did match his own he supposed. _“You can see her?”_

_“Not technically. But you can see her and I can see her through your thoughts.”_

At that Hux fully grasped the fact that Ren was inside his head, that they were communicating from a distance as they would if they were sitting in the same room. The knowledge that Ren can traipse in and out of his mind effortlessly from anywhere, was disconcerting to Hux to say the least, but he accepted it for what it was. There wasn’t much he could do, but accept it.

 _“I’ve never done this before if you’re concerned,”_ came Ren’s voice _. “At least not to you.”_

 _"_ _I wasn’t concerned,”_ said Hux, but perhaps he was. _“Why are you doing it tonight?”_ Ren did not respond and from the silence, Hux knew the answer to his own question and he chuckled to himself. _“Why, Lord Ren, I never thought you’d miss me.”_

Hux imagined a world of indignant responses to come from Ren, but when Ren finally did respond, he simply said, _“…I suppose sometimes when we get used to a certain thing…”_ the thought trailed off, but Hux understood.

 _“Ren,”_ said Hux. _“I’m not kind, not by any means_. _”_ It was not at all what Hux intended to say, but the thought formed in his mind and by the time he could stop himself, it was too late.

 _“Hum…”_ thought Ren _. “Maybe not.”_

_“I didn’t even know you believed in kindness.”_

_“Of course I do,”_ said Ren.

 _“Humph, then you’re a better man than me.”_ Hux wondered if derision translated well in thought.

 _“I said that I believed in kindness, not that I believed that I’m capable of it,”_ said Ren.

Hux snorted. _“Well then, look at the pair of us, two unkind people. What can we possibly have to offer one another?”_

 _“Nothing but hostility, I’d say,”_ said Ren, and there was laughter in his voice.

_“Yes it does seem that way, doesn’t it?”_

_“But not just that,”_ said Ren. _“You did offer me something else, too, General.”_

Hux straightened up in his bed _. “I did?”_

 _“Yes,”_ said Ren. _“You kept my secret, when you had no reason to.”_

Hux felt the uncomfortable prick of something jabbing into his chest, it was the most unfamiliar sensation and the general only just barely recognized it for guilt.

 _“I don’t think I did that for you,”_ said Hux.

 _“Maybe not,”_ said Ren, after a pause. _“But you did do it.”_

Hux shifted, careful not to disturb the sleeping cat on his chest. His eyelids were growing heavy, and his body was desperately in want of sleep after a long day, but his mind was awake, eagerly feeling around for signs that Ren was still there. It felt like he was waving a hand in the dark, desperately trying to grab for Ren’s, only that was an absurd way to think about it and Hux cast such thoughts from his mind instantly.

 _“General,”_ said Ren after some time had passed.

 _“Hum?”_ said Hux and even his mind’s voice sounded sluggish and heavy.

 " _I want to show you something before you fall asleep.”_

The curiosity, stirred Hux to consciousness, but only just slightly. Just as he began to question how Ren intended to show him whatever it was, a vivid parade of moving images floated into his mind, like a memory, only it wasn’t his. In the images, an enormous grey tabby cat stood beside a pond. It poked its flat, squished face into the skin of the water, and with it’s paused it attempted to swat at the fish swimming below the surface. Then, suddenly, to the cat’s utmost surprise a fish leapt from the water, directly into the cat’s face. In its shock, the cat shot into the air, like a rocket. Caught completely off guard by what he was seeing in his mind, Hux let out a loud bellowing laughter. He couldn’t contain himself. What he had seen was so utterly ridiculous and endearingly hilarious.

 _“What…”_ Hux said, through his laughter.

 _“He was one of my cats,”_ said Ren, laughing along.

 _“You had a cat?”_ said Hux. The thought of Ren with a pet. It was so shockingly normal, and human.

 _“I had several,”_ said Ren.

 _“Well this day has been full of surprises.”_ General Hux closed his eyes, allowing his head to sink into his pillow.

He was still laughing to himself at the image of the cat shooting into the air, when Ren said to him, _“Why did you save the cat?”_

Subconsciously Hux ran a hand over the soft warm ball of fur on his chest. Saved the cat? Is that what he did? _“How don’t know,”_ Hux replied. _“Why did you keep your clone?”_

When Ren gave no answer to the question, Hux stirred. He felt his mind drifting into sleep, but he pulled himself back, inexplicably determined to hold on to the feeling of Ren’s presence in his mind.

_“Ren?”_

_“I'm still here,”_ said Ren.

Hux had nothing more to say to Ren and yet, an unfounded sense of relief washed through him upon hearing Ren's voice assuring him that he had not left. Hux was too tired to make sense of any of it.

Ren’s voice in his head was the last thing Hux remembered, before he drifted off to sleep.

 ***

There was Ren the next day, tall and imposing as ever, looming over the bridge. They hardly spoke the next day, going about their business with very little interaction with each other.

Every so often Hux would turn his head to cast a glance at Ren. Behind that mask, turned away from him, it was difficult for Hux to picture the voice that had spoken into his mind the night before. There were times when Hux paused to wonder if the conversation that had transpired between was nothing more than a dream conjured up by his tired mind.

 _How mad must I be to dream of Kylo Ren?_ thought Hux.

But then, there were times throughout the day when Hux thought he felt a brush of Ren against his arm when they passed each other on the bridge, or the heat of Ren’s body standing too close to his, when there was no need to stand so close. Each time, Ren was near him, Hux would feel his heartbeat quicken and his breath hitch in his throat. And his fingers would twitch with the longing to reach out and grab for him, just to feel Ren in his hands.

Yes, indeed, he must be mad.

At mid-day, Hux found himself desperately in need of a smoke. He went to the observation portal, hastily dismissing the Troopers on patrol there so that he may have the place to himself. When he was alone, he sat down against the wall and looked out at the stars. No sooner had he torn the filter from the tip of cigarette, lit it and brought it to his lips did he feel the presence of someone appearing beside him.

Hux didn’t like being interrupted while he was taking a smoke break, but he found, to his surprise, as he looked up the length of Kylo Ren’s tall figure, that this time he rather welcomed it.

His heart quickened again. What was this strange reaction he was having to being near Ren?

“Millicent,” said Ren through his mask.

“What?” said Hux as smoke escaped his lips.

“That’s what you should name the cat.”

“Millicent…” Hux shrugged. “Well, I suppose she does need a name.”

Before Hux could think about what he was doing, he scooted to the side to make room for Ren. “Join me?” he said and immediately he knew he was making a terrible mistake. But it was too late…

Ren wavered for a moment before he sat, and the first thing he said after he had seated was, “If you’re going to smoke, at least don’t rip off the filter.”

Hux scoffed. “At this point, I’m not sure it makes a difference.”

“No, you’re right,” said Ren, words Hux never thought he’d ever hear Ren say to him. “You shouldn’t smoke at all, it’s a terrible vice.”

“I seem to be full of terrible vices,” said Hux dryly. He pulled the cigarette away from his mouth and looked at it, clipped between his fingers. He considered for a moment, before he held it out to Ren. “I’ll let you take it, on one condition.”

Ren’s masked head, tipped a fraction. “What condition?”

“Remove your mask.”

“Why?”

“Please?” said Hux, he can’t remember the last time he said that word and was astounded at himself that it was Ren he had said it to. What had gotten into him.

Carefully, with a tinge of uncertainty in his movements, Ren reached up, unlatched the mask and pulled it from his head. Ren’s full, dark hair fell out around his face, and it seemed to glimmer beneath the light.

Hux drew in a deep breath and his stomach fluttered, yes, fluttered, there was no other word for it, much as Hux resented such a descriptor.

Ren sat the mask down between them.

“A deal’s a deal,” said Hux, stretching the barely smoked cigarette out further for Ren to take. He felt it being plucked from his fingers and watched as Ren crushed the end with his gloved fingers, and winced at the destruction of a perfectly good cigarette. What a waste, but Ren seemed satisfied as he dropped the cigarette to the ground, and that was almost worth it.

Hux cocked his head to study Ren’s face. By then he’d seen it enough times and yet there was something so appealing in the strange features set on that pale face, that Hux felt he could stare at it all day, and never tire of it. He’d always thought that, even in the height of their animosity, he’d thought that.

“There’s a constellation on your face you know?” said Hux, abruptly.

“What?” said Ren, drawing back with a sudden coyness that was so unlike him.

“No, no, look!” Mindlessly, Hux reached out with both his hands and took Ren’s face to keep him from pulling away. It was only upon resting his hands upon Ren’s warm skin, that it occurred to Hux that he was dangerously in breech of some unspoken protocol between them, and that Ren could easily rectify the situation in the most terrifying way possible, should he be so inclined. But, while Ren’s muscles tensed underneath Hux’s touch, he allowed it.

“If you start here…” said Hux, gingerly brushing his fingers over the mole on Ren’s right cheekbone, and come here…” he dragged the finger down the side of Ren’s face, “…and then connect these two…” he went along the nose, to the other side of the face. Ren’s long lashes batted against Hux’s touch, “…and end up here…” Hux stopped right above Ren’s forehead. “You get…” Hux coxed his head, “…a droid of some sort.”

Ren’s eyebrows lifted. “A droid of some sort?” He sounded rather disappointed.

“Well I don’t know,” said Hux. “I really have no imagination at all. But at least it’s better than nothing.”

“No, I’d much rather have nothing than a constellation of a droid of some sort on my face,” said Ren.

Hux laughed and after a moment so did Ren. Hux had never seen Ren laugh before. The sound was deep, and throaty, and it brought a light to his face that illuminated over those, strange, endearing features. _Don’t stop,_ Hux wanted to say, seeing the glow in Ren’s dark eyes.

It was then that Hux realized that his hands were still on Ren’s face, but instead of removing it, he began to trace the outlines of Ren’s full lips, touching them at last, feeling them beneath his fingers. Hux pressed against the plushness of those lips, he couldn’t feel it through the fabric of his gloves, but Hux imagined those lips were soft. He wanted to pull Ren into him, he wanted to taste those lips in his mouth.

Something was happening to General Hux, something terrible and dangerous.

He pulled back look warily at Ren and he didn’t like the way Ren was making him feel.

It would not be the first time Hux had felt his insides stirring with lust at the sight of Ren. There had always been something innately sensual about the man. It was in the way he sucked his lower lip in and gnawed at it with his teeth, it was in the passion that was ever present in those big, dark eyes and they way they shone with all his wild emotions, it was even in his hair, the shine of it, the fullness of it, the darkness of it, the way it blew around his pale face. Even when Hux hated the man, he wanted to poses him. Possessing Ren was like possessing raw power itself, why wouldn’t General Hux desire such a thing? Even if he hated the thing he desired? After all, hate was hate but he was still a man, and a man’s desires always ran deep.

But this time, the feeling that swarmed through his body was different. The lust was gone, replaced by something else, something that was so utterly wrong it weakened and frightened him.

In an instant Hux pulled his hands away from Ren and he shot up to his feet. “Forgive me, Lord Ren,” said the general tugging to adjust his uniform. He kept his eyes away from Ren. “I seem to have forgotten myself.” The voice was cold, even to Hux’s own ears.

And without allowing Ren the chance to respond, Hux turned on his heel and walked out of the observational portal. But the general didn’t return to the bridge. Instead, he marched calmly through the corridors, to the lower deck of the ship that housed the officer’s sleeping quarters.

Troopers stopped to salute as he passed them and he acknowledged each one. His breathing was slow and measured, a mask of perfect calm, as he made his way to his chambers. Outside his chambers, Hux carefully punched in the numbers of his passcode. Then he folded his hands behind him and waited for the blast door lift. When it did he stepped through, one foot at a time into the darken room where the light was turned down to zero percent. He didn’t bother to turn the light on.

There was a soft mewing in the dark, coming from the cat on the bed. Hux moved easily through the dark in the familiar space, finding his way to the washroom and once inside he shut the door and ordered the lights to turn on.

The successions of movements that followed were so familiar, it was almost ritualistic. Hux went to the shower, twisted it on, turning the heat dial as high as it would go. As the water poured out, splashing onto the clean white tiles, Hux began to carefully remove his uniform. Still his breathing was even and measured and his eyes stared forward, his muscles moved, his mind was devoid of all thought. It was as though were in a trance. He started with his greatcoat, pulling it off one sleeve at a time, and draped it over a hanger dangling from a hook by the towel rack. Then he moved on to the rest of his uniform, pulling it off one piece at a time, folding it neatly, making sure to tug out the wrinkles. All the while, the room grew cloudy with suffocating steam. With his body completely bare, Hux rested his uniform on a shelf beside the sink. His cock was stiff between his legs, it had been since the moment he pressed his fingers against Kylo Ren’s lips, but Hux did nothing to relieve it, letting the pain of his erection seep into his nerves as he stepped into the shower.

The hot water racked against his frail skin, scorching it red on impact. Hux let the boiling water pour through his hair and tumble down his back, burning him through. And then, in the burning heat, with the air heavy with steam that made him feel dizzy and delirious, Hux began to laugh. The laugh came in quiet spasms at first. Short, choked sounds that sputtered out of his mouth and then it grew louder, and louder. The sound filled the room, swirling in the steam and pressing against his ears, sharp, uncontrolled, maniacal roaring, that mocked him, mocked him for his craving, mocked him for his idiocy, mocked him for his weakness. The sound was hysterical, so full of wild abandon, it nearly sounded like a scream, until it did turn into a scream. Blazing water splashed against his wide open mouth, burning the skin on his tongue and gums, as Hux pushed the scream out from his gut. The scream tore out of his sick, decaying lungs, assaulting the pattering of falling water.

As Hux screamed thoughts raced into his mind, crashing like an avalanche. He closed his eyes as he thought about the years he spent on cold, capital ships, in training, drilling himself to be strong, drilling himself to be a warrior, drilling himself to be a ruler. He thought about what all of it was for. He thought about his destiny, so close and tangible, he could almost touch it, he needed only to reach just a little bit further. His empire was rising, but the empire would crumble beneath his weakness if he couldn’t rise above it. Hux was born to be an emperor, and emperors were worshipped and revered, not played for fools. He thought about Snoke, sitting from that throne-like seat, towering over him from the hologram, as though it was Hux’s place to stand beneath him and bow before him. And he thought about Kylo Ren, with his smug face, and all that power tearing at the seams, power the man couldn’t even control. What Hux would do for power like that. It was Ren that mocked him the most, strutting around a constant reminder of what he wanted, but never have. And now Ren had the audacity to make him weak.

It started with the clone and Ren’s sentiment. In his mind, Hux recalled the way Ren stood behind him that day they walked away from their meeting with Snoke. How moved Ren had been by the simple gesture of Hux’s silence, as though, by keeping that secret, Hux had presented him with some great pledge of loyalty and devotion. Ren’s response to Hux’s gesture was naïve to the point that it was almost childlike and stupid, and yet somehow, when Hux allowed himself to be drawn in by it. By all of it. Had Hux secretly been craving Ren’s affections all along, that he so easily dropped his guard at the first offer of goodwill from Ren?

Anger seared Hux deeper than the heat of he water. From that anger, adrenaline rose, forming in his muscles as crude bursts of energy. Hux coiled his reddened fingers into fists and began to slam those fists into the hard, hot tiles. He pounded, agonizing pain shuddered through his bones, and he drew his hands back and pounded again and again and again, until skin broke and blood, like looked purple beneath the cloudy light, stained his white and sterile tiles. He continued to pound until all the heat in the water ran cold. It was then, that Hux’s mind cleared, and he knew what he must do. If Ren’s amity towards him made him weak, then it was that amity he needed to destroy, like a disease being cut out of a sick body. With aching, trembling hands, Hux twisted the dial, shutting the water off. He stepped from the shower, red skin dripping with water and blood, his body drawn upright, his face a mask of perfect, practiced composure.

General Hux was calm then and he was focused.

***

General Hux had a plan, the perfect plan that would bring an end to those who stood in his way. Snoke and Ren, tearing each other apart, while Hux rose to claim the throne that was rightfully his. What a beautiful plan it was, so exquisite it was the stuff of ballads. But, life being what it was, Hux should have known, he would never hear that ballad being sung. And he should have known that it would be he would who would burn his own perfect plan to the ground.

Ren’s secret was like missile, strategically fired it would have been a weapon of mass destruction, but fired to soon, and haphazardly aimed, it was nothing more than a hazard, fatal only to a few. Hux knew this, and it actually hurt when he stood in front of Snoke’s towering hologram, and fired that precious missile.

Snoke knew Ren’s secret now. Hux had told him, and not at a time when the revelation would have been detrimental to Snoke and beneficial to Hux. And it hurt. It hurt him more than his seared skin, stinging underneath the weight of his uniform and greatcoat, more than the bloodied knuckles hidden in his leather gloves. The pain wasn’t physical, it was mental and excruciating, and General Hux told himself that the pain he felt was for the obliteration of his beautiful plan, and nothing more.

Ren came when his master summoned, his heavy steps, inching closer and closer to the blue-filmed hologram. Only when he stopped beside Hux did the general realize that he had been holding his breath.

His heart pounded inside his chest, and Hux wondered if Ren could feel it. Was that the sort of thing Ren’s powers were privy too? Perhaps not. But why did it matter either way what Ren could feel?

“General Hux has told me the most disturbing tale,” came Snoke’s echoing voice. “Kylo Ren, tell me the truth of this.”

“The truth, Supreme Leader?” said Ren through the mask.

Snoke inclined his grotesque face towards Hux. “Tell my apprentice, General, what you have told me. Tell him with your own mouth what it is you accuse him of.”

Hux steadied himself with a deep breath. His fists curled, stinging his broken knuckles. “It is no accusation, Supreme Leader, it is the truth. Kylo Ren has created a clone, born of the Force. He has been keeping it as a pet and a secret from you.”

Ren didn’t look at him. From the corner of his eyes, Hux could see that the knight’s posture was still and steady as he looked forward at his master, betraying no emotion at all.

“Is this true?” said Snoke to his apprentice.

Ren did not hesitate. “Yes, master. It is true.”

“Well…” breathed Snoke. He leaned back on his throne. “So you’ve created a being of flesh and blood, completely sentient, as though born from the womb? I’ve not known many Force wielders who have accomplished such a feat. Of that, I am most impressed.” Snoke pushed himself forward, launching his enormous hologram head towards Ren and Hux, like a projectile threatening to slam right into them, if only it were solid. “But I am disturbed by your secrecy, Kylo Ren, disturbed and concerned.”

“Master—”

“—Quiet!” Snoke hissed at Ren. “This clone is your weakness. You have compassion for him.”

“No!” said Ren.

“Is that even love I see in you, Kylo Ren, for this thing you have created?” Snoke was taunting Ren. There was a time Hux thought he might have enjoyed such a display, to see Ren ridiculed and humiliated by his master, but Hux found that all enjoyment was lost on him at that moment and a part of him wanted to put an end to the taunting.

“It is not,” said Ren firmly. Maybe too firmly. “I am incapable of love, Supreme Leader.”

The statement, settled uncomfortably on Hux's ears, and settled in Hux's gut like lead, though Hux wasn't sure why he would even care about such a statement.

“I am relieved,” said Snoke. “Then you will have no problem destroying the thing.”

A sharp withdrawal of breath escaped from the amplifier of Ren’s mask. It was the first crack in Ren’s carefully constructed façade of composure. “Forgive me, master, but I believe that would be a mistake. He is a Force sensitive, just as I am. His powers can prove useful to us.”

“Oh?” said Snoke. “And is he strong with the Force?”

A moment’s hesitation and then, “No, Master, he is not, his abilities are, basic, at best.”

“It is only a flicker of power then,” said Snoke. “What use can that be to us? There have been many Force sensitives that have come and gone since the beginning of time, most have lived and died like all living things, unextraordinary and utterly useless. The First Order has no need for a unextraordinary and useless things, Kylo Ren.”

Ren’s chest rose and fell heavily, the second sign of a fracture in his façade of composure. “He has other uses.”

“And what other uses would those be?” said Snoke sounding doubtful.

“Infiltration,” said Ren.

“Of the Resistance?” Snoke made a sound that resembled a snort. “The general of the Resistance is not so easily fooled, I’d expect you to know that above all others.”

“No, not the Resistance, Master. I mean for my clone to infiltrate our own ranks.”

Hux snapped his head over to look at Ren, but still Ren kept his focus forward.

“I have reason to believe that General Hux’s faith in his training methods might be misplaced.”

Uncontrolled resentment prompted Hux to speak out, “The loyalty of my men are not at question here—”

“—Come now, General, I assure you, you would not be the first to misplace your faith in the hands of those undeserving of it,” Ren said quietly. though he was speaking to Hux, Ren did not look at him.

“What reason do you have to question the effectiveness of General Hux’s training methods?”

“Recently, there had been an incident of non-conformity amongst the stormtoopers. An entire unit had been harboring a litter of kittens aboard the ship, a secret kept for months that had gone undetected.” From the tension in Ren’s shoulders, Hux knew that the parallels to his own, well-kept secret did not go unnoticed by Ren.

“Kittens…” said Snoke, and Hux had never known the word to sound so menacing. “Yes, you are right, that is cause for concern…” Snoke folded his long, white, spidery fingers together. “Very well, send your clone amongst the Stormtroopers, Kylo Ren, have him infiltrate the ranks. I want to know of any disloyalty brewing in that army of yours, General Hux.”

“If I may, Supreme Leader,” said General Hux tensely. He knew he brought this upon himself, but it did not make it any easier to accept. “Kylo Ren’s clone is not a solider. He has no armed training or military knowledge. He won’t last a day pretending to be a solider.”

“A valid point, General,” said Snoke, “to a problem with a simple solution. Kylo Ren, you will appoint your clone to a position where he can keep a close watch on the soldiers, but one where he will draw little suspicion.”

“Yes, master,” said Ren.

“I do hope he will prove his value to me, Kylo Ren. The day he ceases to be of use will be the day you prove your own loyalty to me by destroying him. Remember that.”

***

They walked away from Snoke’s presence side by side, and Ren was too calm for Hux’s comfort. The knight stalked away in silence, parting from the general as Hux returned to the bridge, and the sheer equanimity of Ren’s demeanor chilled Hux to the bones.

Something was coming, Hux expected it at every turn, looked for it with every passing moment, but he did not see Ren again for the rest of the day.

At the end of the day Hux returned to his chambers, dismissing the droid that offered to bring the general his supper. He had no appetite, only a craving for a smoke and a long sleep, but the evening had other plans for him, it seemed. General Hux knew what was was waiting for him the moment he walked into his chambers to find the lights turned up at barely five percent.

In the shadows of the room the masked figure sat waiting for Hux at the end of the general’s bed. Ren was angry, Hux could feel it. Dark energy swirled in the air, more suffocating than the steam that had filled Hux’s shower just hours before. It felt right, though, to find Ren seething. This was the Ren Hux knew and he had prepared himself for this.

Hux walked deeper into his chamber, letting the blast door drop behind him, sealing him in with the dark knight and the fate he had in store. A quick sweep of the room told him that his cat was nowhere to be found, having run off somewhere to hide. Clever little beast, she did have such a mind for survival.

Ren sat, unmoving, as Hux drew closer to him. The general opened his mouth, trying to bring forth some sort of witticism to cut through the silence, but nothing came. His mind could conjure no words at all, not even feeble ones, and Hux realized that he was feeling suddenly very tired, exhausted to the bones.

Eventually, Ren broke the silence. “They say I’m mercurial and unpredictable, but you, General, you are something else.” That voice, amplified by the mask’s mechanics sounded colder and more inhuman than usual. “I must commend you, even I didn’t foresee your deception.”

Hux sighed, his shoulders had never felt so heavy with that greatcoat he wore like armor draped over them. “Ren…”

At the sound of Hux speaking his name, Ren’s hands shot out. Like a noose being tightened around his neck, Hux began to choke while Ren’s invisible grip crushed down on his vocal cords. Ren stood from the bed, and Hux felt himself being lifted off the ground. He sailed through the air, stopping right in front of Ren’s masked face. Hux squinted into the slits in the metal mask, trying to find Ren’s eyes, but all he saw was darkness looking back at him.

“Why?” said Ren and his voice tight. Hux felt Ren enter his mind, snaking into his thoughts in search of the truth and he did all he could to conceal that dark secret of his.

Unable to speak with his mouth, Hux pushed the answer into Ren’s head. _“You wouldn’t like my answer if I told you.”_ Hux was amazed at his ability to form a cohesive thought through the haze growing in his oxygen-deprived brain.

The hold around his neck grew stronger, the threat of being choked was quickly being eclipsed by the real possibly that Ren might just snap his neck like a twig. What a shame it would be to have done all this for the sake of his empire, only to have that empire die with him before it’s rise, at the hands of Kylo Ren. It was most fitting with the ironies of late, and even in his compromised state, General Hux’s morbid aesthetics found himself admiring the beauty of such an irony.

 _“Did it make you feel clever, General, to play me for a fool? Did it make you feel powerful?”_ Ren snarled, the voice was in his head and it was Ren’s true voice, untainted by the mask, brimming with unfiltered emotion.

 _“Yes,”_ said Hux. That was the truth. It did indeed make him feel powerful, and he had never in his life enjoyed power less.

 _“All of this….it was just about power?”_ said Ren and his voice was so broken he sounded like a lost child.

Guilt flooded into Hux’s chest, that feeling that was so unfamiliar to him. _“Everything is about power, Ren. It always is, for every last living thing in the galaxy. You understand that just as much as I do. Don’t pretend to be any different from me.”_

 _“It was different,”_ Ren’s voice broke, _“for me.”_

The implication of Ren’s words caused Hux’s heart to skip a beat, but he didn’t allow the words to settle in his mind. _“For you,”_ said Hux. _“And yet it's me you hold accountable.”_

“You are accountable,” Ren growled, speaking now through his mask. “You made me believe—”

“No,” Hux rasped through his strangled throat. The sound that came out of his mouth was so strange, he couldn’t recognize it as his own. “It. Was. You.”

“What?” Ren breathed, the word accentuated by a sharp exhale.

 _“You drew a conclusion based on your own perception of my behavior,”_ Hux thought, before choking out loud, “I. Can’t. Be. Held. Accountable. For. That.”

Hux was certain those would be his last words. The last testimony of a would be emperor. Not exactly the thing of legends, but it would be a fitting end, in it’s own way to the life of General Hux. He’d always lived for his ambitions, for that destiny that may never come to pass, sacrificing everything and everyone who stood in his way, it suited him well, that he would die for his ambitions.

But death did not come.

Instead Ren released his grip on Hux, and Hux found himself falling to the floor. Pain shot through his shoulder and back, but he was alive and Ren was…

…Ren was walking away. With a sweep of his cloak, Ren’s back was turned to Hux on the ground, and he was making his way quickly towards the blast door. He waved a hand and the door drew up, allowing the light to spill in from the corridor.

Just as Ren disappeared out the door, Hux heard his voice in his head. _“You’re right, General,”_ he said, and he sounded as tired as Hux felt. The tone was so conciliatory, like all fight had been drained out of him. It was so terrible a tone, Hux longed for Ren’s fury to return to his voice, but it didn’t. _“You’re absolutely right...and you’ve won.”_

And just like that Ren was gone.

***

Things returned to the way it used to be. In the weeks that followed Ren brought back the all too familiar chaos on the bridge, straining the general’s day with discourse and disarray. Ren’s vitriol returned in full force, and with time Hux found that his did as well, and just like that they were back to hating each other.

General Hux had dreams once, dreams that didn’t involve Kylo Ren and now things were back to the way they should be. Kylo Ren would have been a distraction from all that Hux desired, and he had rid himself of that distraction. In one ingenious play Hux had managed to not only blindsight the great Knight of Ren, but weaken and humiliate him as well. He earned Ren's loathing in one glorious strategic maneuver, and Ren's loathing, Hux told himself, was exactly what he had wanted. It was the greatest of successes, a testimony of his genius that ought to fill him up with the all too familiar sense of pride and triumph. It ought to feel good, it ought to feel right. 

 _It does_ , Hux tried to make himself believe, for he did so want to believe that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Find me on tumblr!](http://theevaline.tumblr.com)


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